Eating Healthy, For Kids/ Comiendo Saludable, Para Niños

Understanding The Food Groups

Are you ready to start teaching kids the importance of nutrition for their growing bodies?

In this post we'll be reviewing a lesson plan you can use to teach your kids how to eat a balanced diet.

Check out Choose MyPlate for more information about eating a balanced diet.

I used this lesson to teach a small group of kids at church how to have a balanced diet without eating meat. I showed them examples of food with protein they could use to substitute meat. However, you can use this lesson plan to teach kids how to manage plate portions, how to select healthy food options, & the different types of food groups, etc.

Introducing The Food Groups

It's important for kids to understand the different type of food groups so they can know how to select the right foods at each meal. You can start out by showing the below video that helps teach all the food groups. If you don't have a screen to show this to the kids, you can watch it yourself & teach it to the kids using a print out of the MyPlate Chart.

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Emphasizing The Food Groups

KidKraft Deluxe Tasty Treats Pretend Play Food

To help kids practice putting foods in their groups I used plastic foods, I recommend purchasing something that has all food groups. Walmart has a good set with several options of all food groups, check out KidKraft Deluxe Tasty Treats Pretend Play Food. You can give the kids one item of each of the food groups, and as you call out "Grains" they can raise it up. You can also make a game out of it, by giving each kid just one item from one food group & they have to find others that belong in their food group. If purchasing plastic food isn't an option you can look for images of veggies, fruits, dairy, grains, & proteins. After you've selected some you like you can print one of each food group for the kids & do the same thing as mentioned above.

At Home Activity

As educators we all know that kids don't always put into practice what they have been taught in class, so to further emphasis the importance of a balanced diet I created a take home activity. PRINT ME! For a more interactive activity you can purchase stickers for the kids to put on their plate! You can find food group stickers online, my favorite are found on Oriental Trading, Food Group Foam Stickers. I purchased one set, I had a small group, & gave each kid one sticker of every food group so they could practice categorizing what they eat. To find additional activities check out Small Flock's Healthy Eating Board on Pinterest!

**If your interested in making this a biblical lesson you can review Daniel 1:8-17 with your kids & use the biblical activity. Be sure to emphasis that their bodies are Gods' Temple, so we should put good things into our body.